


think i know where you belong

by outruntheavalanche



Series: all our bits and precious bobs [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Community: tfa_kink, F/M, Fighting, Gen, Jealousy, M/M, Not Beta Read, Petty Friendship, Pre-Friendship, Pre-Relationship, Silly, rivals to friends, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 12:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5967583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Rey’s decided that she doesn’t like the Resistance pilot.  Not one bit.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	think i know where you belong

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**tfa_kink**](http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/): **Scavenger Rey is not use to sharing her things and Poe is jealous of Finn's closeness with Rey. I just want them to have a rivalry for Finn's attention and snarky comments/ passive aggressive exchanges. But make no mistake they will defend each other and will murder anyone who looks at Finn funny.**
> 
> Title from "You Belong With Me," by Taylor Swift.
> 
> This is essentially gen, but I wrote the whole thing with 'ships in mind, so.

Rey’s decided that she doesn’t like the Resistance pilot. Not one bit.

Poe. Poe Dameron. The name makes her upper lip curl into a sneer.

Finn adores him, of course. He can’t stop going on and on about how bleeding _wonderful_ Poe is. His eyes positively sparkle. It’s disgusting, makes Rey’s stomach twist into knots like it’s full of angry Mynocks.

 _He’s so handsome and brave, Rey_ , the starstruck Finn-voice in the back of Rey’s head gushes. _And he’s so talented! He’s the best pilot in the Resistance!_

“But is he the best pilot in the galaxy, Finn? I think not,” Rey snarls to the empty darkness of her tiny, cramped bedchambers. 

Sometimes she regrets bringing Master Luke back to the Resistance base.

The best pilot in the galaxy was probably Han Solo; Sith’s tits, it probably still _is_ Han Solo, even though he’s been dead for nearly a year.

Rey’s just sick of hearing about how wonderful Poe is, is all. But she’s not _jealous_. She’s _not_. If anything, Poe should be jealous of _Rey_. She gets to train with the greatest Jedi in the universe, let alone the galaxy, _and_ she gets to have Finn by her side. Poe just flies around blasting at things and tries too hard to impress Finn with his ostentatious, entirely unnecessary aerobatics. 

Unfortunately, it seems to be working.

Rey tosses and turns in her bed, and mutters grumpily under her breath.

[DESIGNATION:JEDI-IN-TRAINING-REY,] BB-8 twitters at her from the charger in her wall, where it’s currently plugged in, [YOUR THINKING IS TOO LOUD. WE ARE TRYING TO POWER DOWN FOR THE EVENING.]

Rey frowns at the astromech, who’d been dumped off on her for the evening. She likes BB well enough, but it’s yet another reminder of Poe. She practically has reminders of Poe coming out of her ears.

“Go fuck a Bantha,” she fires back at the droid as she punches up a pillow under her head.

BB trills at her angrily, its dome spinning.

Rey pulls her pillow over her head and drowns out BB’s offended blats and beeps. 

***

The next morning, Rey seeks out and corners Finn in the mess before Poe can latch onto him and drag him off to do Force knows what.

“Would you like to come meditate with me today?” Rey asks, offering him a shy smile.

Finn likes her smiles, she’s pretty sure. At least, she always seems to catch him glancing at her mouth. He usually looks away quickly, like he’s been caught doing something he ought not to be doing.

“Oh, uh. Sorry,” Finn says, which is not the response Rey had been expecting (or hoping for). “Poe and I have plans already. He’s taking me for a spin in his X-Wing!”

Rey bites back a frustrated groan. _Of course he is_. “Oh, that sounds fun!”

“I bet he’d take you flying too, if you wanted,” Finn says, looking guilty. 

Does Finn think she’s jealous of _him_ for spending so much time with Poe, rather than the other way around? 

_Oh, Finn. You have no idea._

“No, no, I’m fine,” Rey says. “You two enjoy yourselves. I’m just going to go meditate. By myself. All alone.”

“I’ll see you later, then,” Finn says.

Rey watches him leave. 

The ugly, black feeling sitting heavy in her chest is either the dark side come to roost, or it’s jealousy. Master Luke would probably say jealousy leads to the dark side, come to think of it. She imagines he’d tell her to let go of this sick, angry little feeling and embrace serenity. She should be glad Finn has found another friend to spend time with when she isn’t with him.

Kriff that.

Poe is just a shiny new toy, but there’s no substance to him. Finn will see that himself, sooner or later.

***

Finn decides, for some reason, that the three of them should watch a holodrama together. He picks out a romantic melodrama of forbidden love amongst a stormtrooper unit, says they used to sneak them into the barracks back during his First Order days. 

“They wouldn’t let us watch any holodramas, let alone ones with romance,” he explains, as he sets up the holoprojector in the center of his room and aims it toward the blank wall.

Poe is lounging—because of _course_ he’s lounging—on Finn’s bed, all carelessly sprawled limbs and mussed hair. He probably thinks he looks artfully disheveled or something. 

Rey’s onto him. She can see right through him even without the whole Jedi-in-training thing.

“What’s it about?” she asks, curling up on a chair beside the bed.

“These two stormtroopers, DX-9999 and FL-1983, get stranded together in this spacepod,” Finn explains, as he settles on the floor between the bed and the chair. “Dax and Fel, they call themselves. They crash-land on this island in the middle of an ocean planet and they’ve gotta fend for themselves. There’s rancors and wampas—which, okay, yeah it’s a little unrealistic. But then Dax falls down a mineshaft and Fel thinks he’s dead, and—”

“Whoa, there, buddy. Don’t spoil the whole thing before we’ve got a chance to watch it,” Poe says, stretching his arms high above his head and arching his spine so that his tank top rides up his stomach a little bit.

Finn’s eyes widen a little bit and his lips part. Rey resists grabbing a pillow off the bed and smacking both of them in the heads with it.

Kriff, she doesn’t even have to physically grab a pillow. She could just lift one using the Force. It’s sorely tempting.

“Okay, here we go.” Finn pushes a button on the holoprojector and sits back against the side of the bed. 

Poe’s foot brushes up against the back of Finn’s shoulder.

Rey does use the Force to scoot her chair a little closer to Finn. Neither Poe nor Finn notice; they’re too caught up in the holodrama’s opening credits to pay her Jedi parlor tricks any mind.

She nonchalantly knocks Poe’s foot away from Finn’s shoulder with a jab of her elbow and nudges her chair in gently against his side. When she hazards a glance over her shoulder at Poe, he’s narrowing his eyes at her in what looks like suspicion and distrust.

Finn leans unconsciously into her folded knee a little bit. Rey turns back around and smiles. 

**Rey - 1, Poe - 0**

***

Rey’s standing in line in the mess hall, waiting for her turn at—she squints, makes a disdainful face—whatever it is the Resistance is passing off as lunch when she hears a sharp, bloodcurdling shout. Rey would recognize that voice anywhere, even in her sleep.

She reaches instinctively for her quarterstaff but—blast it, she left it back in her room. She’d been modifying it with a shoulder strap and she hadn’t thought to bring it with her to the mess. 

Rey sighs, ducks out of the line, and runs toward the shouts and, now, the sound of fists hitting flesh. She breaks into a sprint, wishing she had her staff on hand, and skids around a corner.

Poe’s got a ruddy-faced young man—a low-ranking serviceman by the looks of him—pinned against the wall with a forearm to his neck. Finn’s on his knees off to the side, an arm wrapped around his midsection.

“What happened?” she asks, running to Finn’s side and getting an arm around his shoulders.

Poe tosses a glance her way, for just a moment, before returning his attention to the man he has pinned by the throat. “Name and rank.”

“Private Doran Sellex. Sir,” the man chokes out. He lifts a hand to the arm against his neck before thinking better of it and letting it drop.

“Private Sellex. I’ll be reporting this incident to General Organa,” Poe says, stepping back. Sellex wilts against the wall and touches his neck. “If I’m not mistaken…this is your third offense.”

Sellex’s eyes widen. “Commander Dameron, I can explain! I was just—”

“Not interested in hearing it, Sellex. Get out of my sight. You should be grateful it was me and not—” Poe looks at Rey and lifts his eyebrows. “Jedi Master Luke Skywalker’s padawan who found you. We’d’ve been peeling your sorry hide off the walls for weeks.”

Sellex can only nod, as he rubs at his reddened throat.

“Go,” Poe says, his voice a peal of thunder right before the storm hits. He turns his full attention—and a very intimidating glare, complete with scary forehead vein—on Sellex. 

“Sir, yes sir.” Sellex tosses off a sloppy salute and scrambles away, nearly tripping on his own feet in his haste to get as far away from the three of them as possible.

Once he’s gone, Poe turns toward Rey and Finn and straightens the front of his olive green uniform jacket. He walks over to them, the soles of his boots clipping on the tile, and crouches down beside Finn.

“Now, what happened?” he asks gently, more friend than commander now. He places a hand on Finn’s back, right about where his scar begins.

Normally, Rey would bristle at the contact, maybe toss off a snappy remark, but she lets it pass without comment.

“I was just walking back to my room after lunch. Totally minding my own business! And then that bantha-bleeding nerfherder just pops outta nowhere, spewing this garbage about how I must’ve been a spy for the First Order!” Finn pauses to gulp down a couple big breaths before launching into the rest of his story. “I managed to get couple good licks in, but he ended up getting the drop on me. It’s kind of embarrassing, I’ve got hand-to-hand combat training, I shouldn’t’ve let him—”

“How about we get you to Doctor Kalonia for a check-up,” Poe suggests.

Finn gives him a horrified look. “Poe, I’m fine! Sure, my pride’s busted, but other than that…” He shrugs, then looks at Rey beseechingly. “Tell him, Rey.”

“I think Poe’s suggestion is actually—” Rey braces herself with a weary sigh. Poe will never let her forget this, she’s certain of it. “—a pretty good one.”

Finn blinks rapidly, and looks at Poe. Then he swivels his head back toward Rey. And then back to Poe. “Really? _Really_?”

“Really. C’mon.” Poe splays a hand low on Finn’s back—and, okay, Rey does bristle at that—as they both help Finn to his feet. “I’m sure you’re just fine, but I’ll feel better—and Rey’ll feel better after you get checked out.”

Finn huffs indignantly. “I’m not a kid. I know my own body better than either of you do,” he grumbles.

Poe’s cheeks flush slightly and he bites on the inside of his cheek, no doubt trying to keep an inappropriate remark to himself. Rey’s almost impressed at the restraint.

“Of course you do,” Rey jumps in before Poe can open his mouth and unleash whatever filth is currently on the tip of his tongue to say. She hooks her arm with Finn’s. “But if it had happened to me or…Poe, would you tell us not to go to the medcenter?”

“No!” Finn protests, managing to sound both somewhat angry and deeply offended at the same time. “But that’s different. That’s _you_ guys. You’re—”

“ _Buddy_ ,” Poe says, slinging an arm around Finn’s neck.

Finn ducks his head, mutters to himself under his breath. “Fine,” he says, lifting his head. “You guys win. I’ll go.”

Poe flashes Rey a victorious grin behind Finn’s back. She tries not to think about that—or how good it actually feels, like she might have gained an ally in Poe—as they take Finn to the medcenter.

Rey fixes her face in a scowl. _Pfassk, I’ve gone soft._

***

Later that evening, after Rey’s had her daily lessons with Master Luke, she makes her way to Finn’s room. They have this thing—Rey’s not really sure when it became a _thing_ but it’s a thing now—where Rey brings her blanket and a pillow and curls up with Finn in bed and they listen to imported music on Finn’s holoplayer. 

Sometimes there’s cuddling. Rey really likes the cuddling. Finn’s a _very_ good cuddler.

When she lets herself into Finn’s room, blanket trailing behind her like a cape, and waves a hand to turn on the lights, she finds herself face to face with the most terrible sight she’s ever seen.

Finn has the holoplayer out already, which isn’t the terrible part. 

The terrible part is she’s been _replaced_. Replaced by Poe kriffing Dameron. 

Poe’s curled around Finn in bed, in _Rey’s_ spot, listening to the music that had been, up until this point, for her ears only. For a split second, Rey feels like she’s back on Jakku and that monster Unkar Plutt has just swindled her out of a week’s worth of portions. Again.

Rey throws her blanket and pillow down on the ground and the door slams shut with the force of her anger. She pushes away the nagging whisper of Master Luke’s voice at the back of her brain, urging her not to give in to her rage. Everything in her churns and aches and burns. Anger and jealousy twist in her blood like writhing snakes, wind around her like vines.

 _“That way lies the Dark Side!”_ comes the ghosty echo of Master Luke’s voice, which is not nearly as effective as the real deal.

“Blast off, Master Luke. Nobody asked you,” Rey mutters, pushing up the sleeves of her tunic and stomping over to Finn and Poe.

“Rey, what’s going on?” Finn asks, sitting up in bed as straight as a durasteel beam. 

“Hey, Rey,” Poe says with phony cheer. 

“That is _my_ spot,” Rey says, pointing at the spot on Finn’s bed that Poe’s currently occupying. “And you’re listening to _my_ favorite station! And you’re stealing _my_ favorite person! I won’t have it!”

Poe sits up too, and blinks rapidly at her, shakes his head a little. “Wait, what? What’s going on here?”

“You _know_ what’s going on. Don’t play dumb, Poe. You may look the part, but I know you’re not that much of a moof-milker,” Rey says, putting her hands on her hips. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”

“Uh, not exactly. Maybe you could fill us both in,” Poe says, glancing nervously at Finn. Finn just shrugs unhelpfully and waves his hands at the two of them. Poe looks back at Rey.

Rey clenches her hands into fists and presses them firmly against her thighs. The vines twist even more tightly around her. 

“Finn is my friend,” she says slowly. It’s a struggle to remain calm. “He’s my first friend, really. My only friend.” She takes a deep breath, counts backwards from ten in her head before continuing. “You can’t steal him from me. I won’t let you. He’s the only one I have.”

Poe’s eyes widen for a moment—in shock?—and then narrow at her. “You think I’m trying to steal Finn away from you?” he asks.

“Yes! Isn’t that what you’re doing? You’re always competing. Trying to one-up me! Like the other night with the tank top and the messy hair and the artful lounging and the completely unsubtle nudging. You’re as see-through as transparisteel!” Rey glares at him and clenches her jaw until it begin to ache.

“I know what’s going on here,” Poe says, pushing himself out of the bed.

“Poe, you don’t have to g—” Finn tries to get up after him, which burns in Rey’s gut, but Poe just turns and waves him off.

“I’m not going anywhere, Finn. We’re gonna sort this out,” he says, turning back to Rey. He’s wearing a shirt with actual sleeves, which is a vast improvement form the other day. He folds his besleeved arms across his chest. “First of all, I’m not trying to steal Finn away from you.”

“Okay. That seems like a lie, but okay,” Rey says. “Continue.”

“Second of all, Finn’s more than capable of having more than one friend,” Poe goes on, and he actually has the audacity to smile at her. 

Rey’s fingers itch for her quarterstaff. She’d love to knock that smug smile off his face.

“And, third of all, he’s not your only friend here,” Poe says.

Rey frowns, pausing in the midst of curling her hands around a phantom staff. She flattens her clammy palms on her trousers. “What do you mean?”

“I’d like to be your friend too, if you want. Actually, I thought we _were_ friends, but I didn’t know you were holding all this—” Poe gestures at her and waggles his fingers near her face “—pent-up hostility towards me. Plus, any friend of mine is a friend of yours. Jessika, Snap, Iolo, Karé, Nien Nunb. They’re a good bunch, and they’ve always got your back. You’ve practically got an army behind you, Rey. If you want it, it’s yours.”

Everything in Rey goes still. The churning anger, the small, tugging ache in her chest, the flare of jealousy sitting low in her gut. All of it suddenly goes quiet. The vines loosen and fall away.

“You want to be my friend?” she asks, startling herself at how small and childlike she sounds. 

How vulnerable. How utterly _embarrassing_. 

She’s reminded of a little girl—hair in three buns, grimy white tunic and bandages wound around her arms—left on an unforgiving desert planet, wailing for a family she’d never see again. 

Rey feels like that girl again. Like her wounds have been reopened. 

But when she looks at Poe and then Finn, who’s gotten out of the bed to join him, she doesn’t think this scraped-raw feeling is necessarily a bad thing.

“You’re not alone anymore,” Finn says, gazing intently at her, his dark eyes softening as he looks at her. He holds a hand out to her, palm turned up, fingers beckoning.

Poe extends a hand too.

Rey looks at both their hands, at their strong fingers and their lined palms. She looks at her own hands, callused and scarred, the hands of a scavenger. Someone used to a life of loneliness.

She reaches out and grabs their hands, and Finn and Poe pull her into a warm embrace.

**Author's Note:**

> But ~~she~~ he wears ~~short skirts~~ flight-suits  
>  I wear ~~t-shirts~~ trousers  
>  ~~She's~~ He's ~~cheer captain~~ Black Leader  
>  And I'm ~~on the bleachers~~ training to be a Jedi  
>  Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find  
> That what you're looking for has been here the whole time.


End file.
